Soto Ayam

Soto ayam is a noodle soup dish that is popular in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. The soup is yellow in color due to the use of turmeric. Most of the Indonesian restaurants in NYC serve this dish (Sanur in chinatown has it too), but I usually cook at home using IndoFood's seasoning mix. It's really easy and delicious!

Serving size 2
Ingredients:
Indofood Soto ayam seasoning mix
2 lbs of chicken thighs
Vermicelli
2 hard boiled eggs, sliced
1 cup Bean Sprouts
small bunch of Chinese celery
Lemon Juice
Water

Recipe (I've modifie the seasoning mix recipe a little):
1) Boil 1 lb of chicken thighs in 2 bowls of hot water until the meat is tender.
2) Add additional water back to to the pot and pour in the content of the Indofood soto ayam seasoning mix, stir well.
3) Remove the chicken from the pot and shred it with forks.
4) Throw in some vermicelli and beansprout to the boiling soto ayam broth and cook for a few minutes.
5) Serve the vermicelli and soup in two separate bowl. Place the shredded chicken on top of the noodles, garnish with Chinese celery and hard boiled eggs, sprinkle some lemon juice, and the soto ayam dish is ready to serve!

Bak Kut Teh 肉骨茶

Bak kut teh literally means pork rib tea in Chinese (Hokkien) and it's the combination of herbs, spices and tender pork ribs that make this dish so delicious and popular in Malaysia and Singapore. In Malaysia, people usually have bak kut teh for breakfast, serve with yam rice and fried dough. Thanks to the prepacked herbs and spices, I am able to prepare authentic bak kut teh here in New York City. It's one of the easier dishes to make, you just need to gather the right ingredients and seasoning, let it cook in the pot for at least an hour, and it's ready to serve. Of course, it's a little more work if you like to have the traditional yam rice instead of the white rice. But still an easy dish to prepare overall. Here's the recipe:

Serving size 2

Ingredients:
Chinese celery
straw mushrooms (enoki)
shiitake mushrooms
fried tofu skin (fried yuba)
1-2 lbs of pork ribs
2 whole garlic
1 cup of yam (cubed, without skin)
1/4 cup of dried shrimps
1 1/2 cups of uncooked rice
10 cups of water
soy sauce
sweet soy sauce (ABC brand)
oyster sauce
1 satchel of bak kut teh prepacked herbs and spices

1) wash the uncooked rice and set aside.
2) fry yam and dried shrimp in some oil until fragrant. Add the uncooked rice, season with salt and pepper, stir well for a few minutes and cook the rice mixture into a rice cooker (with some water of course).
3) prepare a pot of water and bring to boil. Add the pork ribs, whole garlic, and the bak kut teh herbs satchel into the boiling water.
4) Simmer for about 30 minutes before adding soy sauce, sweet soy sauce, oyster sauce and some salt to taste.
5) Let the pork ribs and herbs simmer for another 30 minutes before adding celery, straw mushrooms and fried yuba skin. Cook for another 30 mins, season with soy sauce, sweet soy sauce, oyster sauce and pepper to taste.
6) Create the dipping sauce by combining chopped garlic, sliced red chilis and soy sauce.
7) Serve the bak kut teh soup with yam rice on the side. Enjoy while it's hot!

Oyakodon 親子丼

Gan loves oyakodon and I like cooking it because it's really simple to make! It's my default lazy day dish. Oyakondon is a Japanese donburi dish where chicken, eggs, onions are cooked together and served over rice. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients (serving size 2)
2 cups of water
1-2 eggs (beaten)
1 large onion (sliced thinly)
1 boneless jidori leg (lean boneless chicken thigh, cut into small pieces)
2 tbps mirin
1 tbps Hon Dashi (dry bonito soup stock)
1 tbps soy sauce
2 cups of cooked rice (made by 1 cup of uncooked rice)

Prepation:
1) Bring 2 cups of water to boil in a stock pan. Pour in dashi, soy sauce, mirin and onions.
2) Cook the onions in the pot for a few minutes until softened.
3) Add the sliced jidori and let it simmer slowly until the the stock is reduced and the onions are caramelized.
4) Add additional 1/2 cup of water, 1 tbps of mirin and 1/2 tbps of soy sauce to taste, and bring the stock to boil again. Pour in the eggs and mix it in the pot evenly. As soon as the egg is cook, pour the chicken/egg/onion onto two bowls of rice. Serve while hot.

Onde Onde

I learned how to make Onde-onde, a Malaysian/Singaporean dessert from my life science class in my high school back in Malaysia. 

Onde-onde is made using glutinous rice flour (think mochi) and it has gula melaka/gula jawa (palm sugar) filling, coated with coconut shavings on the outside. The dessert is incredibly simple to make and it tastes delicious!


Ingredients:

Approximately 4 cups of Glutinous Rice Flour

Coconut Shavings (you can get frozen coconut shavings at Top Line supermarket in Queens if you live in NYC)

Shaved Gula Melaka/Gula Jawa/Palm Sugar (I prefer the darker gula melaka)
Pandan Leaves Juice (Screwpine leaves juice –I use blender to extract the juice) 

Artificial Pandan flavor coloring (to make the onde onde look greener)

A pot of bowling water




1) Knead the glutinous rice flour with some pandan leaves juice + a few drops of green coloring + hot water mixture slowly until a smooth dough is formed. 

2) From the dough, create some small balls using your palms. Flatten the ball/dough and place shaved gula melaka onto the center of the dough. Wrap the filling with the side of the dough and then roll into ball shape again. 

3) Cook the onde-onde (that has gula melaka filling) in the bowling water. The onde-onde will float on the water when it's done.

4) Coat the cooked onde onde with shaved coconut and let it cool. Back home in Malaysia, onde-onde is served as one of the cakes/desserts for afternoon tea. Enjoy!

Chicken Chop

Serving Size :2

Marinate
Soy sauce
Pepper
Worcestershire sauce

Ingredients
Flour
2 Chicken thighs (debone)
1 Tomatoes
1 Cucumber
3 cups of Peas and Carrots
Mayonnaise
White Vinegar
Sugar
Salt
Black Pepper
Oil

1) Pound the chicken thighs (deboned) to a desired thickness.
2) Marinate with soy sauce, black pepper and Worcestershire sauce for a few hours or overnight.
3) Mix 3 cups of peas and carrots with mayonnaise, sugar, salt, white vinegar and black pepper. Store in refrigerator until ready to serve.
4) When ready to cook, pat dry the chicken thighs and coat with flour. Shake off excess flour and fry in hot oil. Brown both sides of the thighs and cook in low heat until they are done (when you can easily poke through the thickest part of the chicken thigh using a fork, the chicken should be ready)
4) Garnish the plate with sliced cucumber and tomatoes, serve the chilled peas and carrots salad and chicken thighs, and your meal is ready!

p/s: the chicken goes really well with ABC chili sauce, which you can get at most South East Asian grocery store.

Malaysian Style Pasta Soup (Mien Fen Kao)

This is my mom's recipe, and I have been making this dish since I was in elementary school (really!). My mom would usually prepare the fried shallots, fried anchovies, the soup stock and the pasta dough, and we would cook it whenever we are ready to eat. Very DIY.

Ingredients (serving size of 2):
Soup Stock - one cup of dried anchovies and 1/2 lb of pork belly
Dried anchovies
3-4 shallots
yau choy (chinese vegetables)- cut to half
1-2 cups of white flour
oil

1) Boil a stockpot full of water with dried anchovies (use stock sachet) and pork belly for about 2 hours.
2) Mix white flour with water slowly in a mixing bowl until a smooth dough is formed. Set aside the dough and cover.
3) Cut shallots into thin slices and peel off the heads of the dried anchovies. Fry shallots and dried anchovies with oil (separately) with low to medium heat, stirring frequently to prevent burning. Set aside the fried shallots and fried anchovies.
4) Remove the pork belly from the stock pot around 1-2 hours later and until a fork to gently pull the meat from the pork belly. Season with some salt and pepper and set aside.
5) On a separate soup pot, pour about one bowl of prepared soup stock and throw in the yu choy, bring to boil. Then use pasta maker to create flat/thin slices of dough, which you then tear into small pieces and throw into the boiling soup.
6) After 1-2 minutes, remove the soup and pasta and place into a serving bowl. Garnish the soup with shredded meat, fried anchovies, fried shallots and serve while hot. Enjoy!

Salmon & Salsa served with Rice

I found this easy recipe on opensourcefood.com and I modified the recipe a little to suit my taste. I thought it turned out pretty nicely.

Ingredients (serving size of 2):
1 cucumber and 1 medium size tomato - finely diced
2 tablespoons of finely chopped chives
sprinkles of yuzu (a type of Japanese citrus) concentrate or use lemon as substitute
salt and sugar to taste
2 Salmon Fillets
Balsamic reduction
2 bowls of cooked rice

1) Prepare some Japanese short grain rice /Jasmine rice in the rice cooker.
2) Create salsa by mixing chopped cucumber, tomato and chives in a bowl with yuzu concentrate, salt and sugar. Set aside.
3) Lightly season both sides of the salmon fillets with salt and pepper, and fry in a non-stick pan until done.
4) Serve cooked rice, salmon fillet and salsa on a plate. Drizzle some balsamic reduction on the fish and serve while hot.

Pan Seared Arctic Char

I have been watching too many Iron Chef, Top Chef and Hell's Kitchen cooking shows that I sometimes get inspired to just cooked something that "looks" like what they cook on tv. This Arctic Char on seafood soup dish was one on those. To create the seafood soup, I bought the ready made seafood + veggies stock from Whole Foods Market, bring it to boil on a stock pan and added sesame oil, sugar, salt, and balsamic vinegar seasoning. To prepare the yellow string beans, I created another pot of seafood soup stock with the same seasoning (with an additional teaspoon of ABC sweet soy sauce) and cooked the yellow string beans in the soup stock. For the Arctic Char, I sliced the fillets into four parts and lightly seasoned the fillets with salt and pepper on both sides and pan seared the fish until golden brown. When it's done, I placed the fish on top of the bowl with the soup and yellow string beans. As a finishing touch, I drizzled some organic balsamic vinegar concentrate on the fish just before serving.

Chef Nick's Ramen Party @ Lynn & Nelson's

Last weekend, Chef Nick came down to NYC to cook for us his famous ramen dish. It was certainly a treat as the ramen broth that was made from pork bones and pork trotters has been prepared ahead of time (for a week, to be exact) and transported to NYC with Nick via the bus.

Gan and I were in charge of bringing the chef to Mitsuwa supermarket to gather ingredients such as fresh ramen and pork belly. I also decided to contribute by cooking my Malaysian style soy sauce pork belly and Marmite chicken wings. Nelson, the host showed off his cocktail making skills during the evening and made very awesome Mojitos!

It was a fun ramen party, with delicious food (especially the ramen, of course) and great company. So a big thank you to Nick, Oi Yen, Nelson and Lynn for organizing it!

Chef Nick mixing his secret ingredients into the soup

Chef Nick! lol....

Chef Nick's creation - Ramen with spicy miso

soy sauce pork belly

Marmite chicken wings

Healthier option - salad

Jern and Chris - my ramen models

Nelson, the wonderful bartender for the night

Kak Liza's Home Cooking @ Kim's

Kim hosted a poker/monopoly night on Saturday, and provided food he catered from Kak Liza for the guests (sounds like a casino - buffet + gambling). According to Kim, Kak Liza does catering as a side business and from time to time she cooks awesome Malaysian dishes such as Nasi Lemak and deliver to the lucky people working at midtown (Dang, I'm jealous!). Gan and I got a chance to taste the food at Kim's and they were good!

Curry Chicken

Achat

Fried Bihoon

Nasi Kelantan

Desserts - I bought the cake from Buttercup Cupcakes. Not impressed at all...the cake was stale

Nick's Chilli Crab @ Iqbal's

Nick Choo should really consider opening a restaurant in NYC. Gan and I will eat there all the time (of course, as paying customers!). Last week, Iqbal hosted a Nick Choo's Chilli Crab dinner at his home. Nick cooked the crabs in two styles - Black Pepper and his signature Chilli sauce; he also prepared some really delicious Ayam Percik. It was a meal I'll remember for a long time. So thank you Nick, for the fantastic crabs and thank you Iqbal, for inviting us to that wonderful dinner!

Homemade chilli crab sauce

Crab brains are actually very delicious. It has abit of an egg-yolk taste to it. Goes well with spicy sauce.

Chef Nick in action

Ready to eat!!!

Nick's cooking shirt

Iqbal, the Host



Black Pepper Crab

Chilli Crab

Sliced Baguette for dipping

Gan and I shared a huge chilli crab!

Ayam Percik

Finger licking good!

Tang Yuen

Tang Yuen with Palm Sugar Soup + Pandan Leaves + Ginger

Tang Yuen literally means round (glutinous rice) balls in a soup and Malaysian Chinese usually make and eat Tang Yuen during Dong Zhi/Winter Solstice Festival around December 22. When I was younger, my mom always make this soup a couple of months before Chinese New Year, and told me that I'll be one year older after eating Tang Yuen. I still don't understand why I'll be one year older after Dong Zhi, but I just love eating them.

There are alot of different varieties of Tang Yuen - there are the ones with peanut fillings, black sesame fillings or red bean paste fillings. I like my Tang Yuen plan and simple, but I have to have them in palm sugar soup with Pandan leaves (screwpine leaves) and ginger. My mom reminded me over the phone yesterday that I have to prepare Tang Yuen, so I made some today. Happy Dong Zhi Festival!

Kara-age Chicken

Kara-age Chicken

I made this for dinner today and it was super easy. I've marinated the chicken thigh pieces with ginger juice, soy sauce and sake/rice wine the night before. To cook it, I just dust the chicken pieces with some flour and deep fry in oil. After the chicken is ready, remove from the oil and sprinkle some salt, pepper and seaweed flakes and serve while hot.

Gan: Best!

Nick's Hainanese Chicken Rice

Nick's Hainanese Chicken Rice


Nick cooked us his famous Hainanese Chicken Rice dish yesterday and it was delicious! Everything from the chicken to the chili sauce was perfect! Now we can tell everyone we've tasted Nick's cooking too! :) Thank you Nick and Oi Yen for making us the wonderful lunch yesterday.

Gan: We've heard of the famous Nick's Hainanese Chicken Rice for quite some time. Was it as good as advertised? Hell yeah! Made the famous Nick's kitchen apocalyptic aftermath a minor distraction at the end of the meal.

Chef Nick and his sidekicks - me washing dishes and Oi Yen in charge of cutting the vegetables. We worked well as a team. :)

Gan: Nick's so lucky to have 2 cute sous chefs in the kitchen!

The heavenly chicken rice - Nick, now i know one of your secret ingredients!
Gan: The key to good hainanese chicken rice is the way you prep the rice.

Shaun preparing the appetizer - mozzarella cheese wrapped in prosciuttos

Nick's Hainanese Chicken

I cooked some shrimp scampi as well

Gan: One of my favorite Sarah's dish.

The guys

The girls :)

Gan: Woot! Food and women!

Vanilla Cupcakes from Dean & Deluca, courtesy of Kim

Chocolate Cupcakes

More desserts!

That's what you do after a good meal ~
Gan: Look at the double chin!